A Portland Circus on Cage’s SilenceA free performance on the occasion of the exhibition Happy Birthday: A Celebration of Chance and Listening

PORTLAND, OR – SEPTEMBER 12, 2012 – Pacific Northwest College of Art’s (PNCA) Feldman Gallery + Project Space presents A Portland Circus on Cage’s Silence, a performance in concert with the exhibition, Happy Birthday: A Celebration of Chance and Listening, which celebrates the 100th Anniversary of John Cage’s birth. This dance and music performance created by choreographer Linda Austin and sound artist Seth Nehil will take place at 7 pm on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 in the Swigert Commons in PNCA’s Main Building at 1241 NW Johnson. The hour-long performance draws inspiration from the cacophonous, multifocal happenings of John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham, using chance procedures to spark unexpected simultaneities. A Portland Circus will fill the PNCA Commons with music and movement, with 16 dancers, 10 musicians, recorded sounds, and a poet among and around the audience, on balconies, and in distant hallways. A score produced through rolls of the die will decide what, where, when, and how performers move and play. In true Cage/Cunningham fashion, dance and music are being created separately – the audience will witness the merging of elements for the first time, along with the performers and creators.

Musical fragments derived from Cage’s Melodies of 1950 (dedicated to Josef and Anni Albers), dance phrases structured on a text passage from Silence, field recordings from around Portland, and a “reading-through” of a portion of Cage’s book Silence by Lisa Radon will be scattered around PNCA’s resonant Commons space. A larger-than-life, projected stopwatch will coordinate the performers precisely to the score. A Portland Circus will be a chaotic, funny, exciting tribute to one of America’s most important artistic figures.

ABOUTPACIFICNORTHWESTCOLLEGE OF ARTPNCA prepares students for a life of creative practice and has been an influential force in art and design education in the Pacific Northwest since its founding in 1909. Today, PNCA enrolls over 600 students in 15 undergraduate and graduate programs, and another 1,500 students through its continuing education programs. PNCA’s graduate programs are part of its Ford Institute for Visual Education (FIVE): an MFA in Visual Studies, a Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies, an MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research, an MFA in Collaborative Design, and an MFA in Applied Craft and Design developed with the Oregon College of Art and Craft, the first inter-institutional degree of its kind in the US.

PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers, and creative thinkers. Portland Monthly, in its January 2012 issue, called PNCA “a creative class crown jewel.” With the support of FIVE, the College has an operating partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit pnca.edu.